


A Random Sample

by Ladybug_21



Category: Love Actually (2003)
Genre: Competent Political Assistants, F/M, letter confessions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:21:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28166931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladybug_21/pseuds/Ladybug_21
Summary: It wasn't exactly chance that Natalie's Christmas card ended up in that stack for the Prime Minister to review.
Relationships: Annie (Love Actually) & David (Love Actually), David (Love Actually)/Natalie (Love Actually)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 19





	A Random Sample

**Author's Note:**

> 'Tis the season, and having just rewatched this, I couldn't resist dashing this out. Hope everyone's holidays are going as festively but safely as possible!
> 
> I own no rights to _Love Actually_.

"Redistributed?" repeated Natalie.

"That's the word he used, yeah," Annie confirmed.

Natalie was one of those bouncy, earnest types whose every emotion showed on her face—quite the opposite from the packs of pokerfaced politicos to which Annie had become so accustomed over her years in the political jungle. The poor girl's lower lip began to tremble just a touch, and she sat down slowly on the chair in her tiny, windowless office.

"We won't demote you," Annie promised. "A lateral move, to somewhere in Whitehall just as exciting as Downing Street. You'll still get your share of rubbing shoulders with the rich and powerful."

Natalie nodded, her eyes cast towards the floor, clearly on the verge of tears.

"Sorry," she said. "I'll just miss it here. The staff, and the rooms, and..." She exhaled.

"I'm really sorry," said Annie. "But you'll land on your feet. We'll make sure of that. The Prime Minister didn't say anything against you when he made the request. It didn't sound like you'd done anything wrong."

" _I_ didn't," muttered Natalie quietly.

Annie started, almost imperceptibly. She'd seen the way that the Prime Minister had looked at Natalie that day they'd first met, the way he'd smiled his devastatingly handsome smile and laughed at Natalie's nervous swears and cheerful mortification. She'd met his endearingly tactless sister Karen, who'd taken one look at Annie and said, "Oh, well, pretty as you are, he _clearly_ chose you for your competence, David likes a girl with a much bigger arse." She'd heard how the Prime Minister had defended Natalie's size when she'd identified Natalie as 'the chubby girl' (perhaps not the kindest descriptor that Annie had ever used, but _really_ , he was bothering her about something like _personnel_ , not an hour after telling the United bloody States what was what?!).

Annie did not like to think ill of her boss. She had been his assistant for as long as she had because she truly believed in his vision of a better Britain. But god only knew how many politicians out there had both sound policies and wandering hands. Fleetingly, she considered asking Natalie to confirm her suspicions, but then decided against. If Natalie wasn't going to accuse David herself, then Annie (irresponsibly, guiltily) didn't want to tarnish her vision of the politician she venerated, even if it meant quietly removing a catering manager who'd possibly rebuffed David's advances.

"Let me know if there's anything you need, as you're clearing out," she said instead.

Natalie sniffled and nodded again, and when Annie was just out the door of the tiny office, she called, "Wait!"

Annie turned on her heel and raised an eyebrow.

"Can you pass along a message to the next catering manager for me?" said Natalie. "He likes the biscuits with chocolate on them. Not the plain ones. Let the next person know?"

Annie nodded curtly, and she meant to jot a note down for herself, but before she'd made her way down the next corridor, five people had made other requests of her. By the time the new catering manager had been vetted and hired and onboarded, Annie hadn't thought about Natalie in days, let alone her message about the biscuits.

* * *

Annie had become David's assistant (back when he really was just David) because she loved watching the game of politics play out in front of her. Downing Street had never been one of her expectations going in, but once she'd seen what David was made of, she'd worked her arse off to make sure that he was as viable a candidate as possible. Liaising with Party leadership, checking logistics for his public appearances, pulling all the strings necessary to make his political life as seamless as possible— _that_ was what Annie loved.

What she hated about being the Prime Minister's assistant were things like sifting through his non-state correspondence.

"It's already been checked for bombs, my dear, you don't need to go through it with a fine-toothed comb," Terence chuckled as he watched Annie skim Christmas card after Christmas card.

"You do your job, Terence, and I'll do mine," Annie replied, chucking a card into the sizable 'reject' pile in danger of tipping out of her recycling bin.

The thing was, Annie had been David's assistant for long enough to know all of the Prime Minister's insecurities. The letters he reviewed needed the right balance of genuine confidence, encouraging without being gratingly obsequious. Otherwise, David was going to worry that the British public weren't paying any attention to what he was doing, or that everyone around him would rather flatter him than tell him how to do his job correctly. All too many times, Annie had caught her boss groaning over how he'd just handled an interaction or a speech, berating himself for his awkwardness, clearly oblivious to how charming more or less everyone found his quirks ('wonderfully humanising', as some old MP had once commented at some state banquet at Buckingham Palace). The poor man was his own harshest critic, and he got rather paranoid if he felt that others weren't pushing him to be better.

And so Annie looked over each letter as seriously as she perused the Prime Minister's daily agenda. It was brain-numbing enough work that she eventually fell into something of a rhythm, automatically chucking aside the ones that were too generic, tossing into a 'maybe' pile the ones from important enough aristocrats who might be political allies. One or two letters from kids, writing how much they admired the Prime Minister, immediately were added to the very small 'accept' pile. Terence went home; Pat appeared at the door an hour later to say she was leaving as well. Annie wished both a merry Christmas and continued with her work, counting down the envelopes until she could drag herself home and down a glass of wine and get a good night's sleep. But then she opened a cheerful polar bear card and stared.

_Dear Sir (Dear David)..._

Annie read the entire message, then re-read it, her heart pounding.

_I'm very sorry about the thing that happened. It was a very odd moment and I feel like a prize idiot. Particularly because—if you can't say it at Christmas, when can you, eh?—I'm actually yours._

Shit.

Annie tossed the card onto her desk and sat back in her chair with a sigh as the pieces all clicked together. Because of course she should have seen the obvious when this all happened, should have considered the _timing_ of David's request, rather than felt irritated that David was burdening her with staff reassignments at such a moment. Annie hadn't wanted to believe the worst of David because she hadn't thought it possible of him; and she had been so caught up in denying the possibility of David's guilt that she'd completely ignored the most likely culprit (because god only knew that the US President's historical misconduct was anything _but_ secret).

True, Annie always had been a little concerned about the attention David paid Natalie. After all, Annie had felt sickened by the hideous power imbalance at play in the news out of the States over the past few years, even if everything _technically_ had been consensual. But if she was reading everything right here, David had never made an inappropriate move on Natalie, and the girl still seemed entirely infatuated with him. Annie trusted David to behave himself better than his American counterpart, especially given his romantic availability. Her hand hovered over Natalie's card; then, with one decisive gesture, she swept it into the 'accept' pile, to be included in the carefully curated random sample of Christmas messages that the Prime Minister would receive with the rest of his briefings.

After another moment of thought, Annie seized one of the rejected envelopes and scrawled a message to herself on the back about chocolate biscuits. Even if she was leaving it to David to patch things up with Natalie, Annie owed it to Natalie to pass along her parting message, regardless.

* * *

"Morning, sir," said Annie on the morning of the 26th.

"Oh, good morning," replied David, looking as flustered as always. "Good Christmas, I hope?"

Annie nodded, because once she'd finished up with the bloody cards and sent them all up to the Prime Minister, she'd gone home and taken an aspirin and a long bubble bath, and actually gotten a full eight hours of sleep for the first time in about five months.

"From what the tabloids are screaming from their front pages, it sounds like you had quite a good one, too," she added with a slight smirk.

David, predictably, looked as if he wanted to retreat into the collar of his shirt.

"Yes, well," he stammered. "Inconvenient theatrical devices, definitely wasn't expecting a big reveal like that, really did try to make the least awkward exit possible given the circumstances, did you know Gavin's got an excellent baritone voice, by the way...?"

"Might as well get it all out in the open, as long as you're serious about it," Annie smiled.

"Indeed," blushed David. "I met her parents last night, for whatever it's worth? Her mum's already made a habit of calling me 'David', which perhaps isn't quite by the book, but..."

David shrugged with a grin that suggested that he'd go dancing through Number 10 again, if Annie didn't have a stack of papers in her arms for him to review.

"Negotiations for the revised trade deal with China," she told him, handing him a binder. "This afternoon at one; I've made sure you'll have an hour or so to review the details with your International Trade Secretary. Before that, though, there's the EU vote on internet privacy coming up later this week, and the provisions..."

"Annie," David interrupted, "the random sample of letters that I received last night—did you have anything to do with that?"

"It was a random sample, sir," Annie said.

"Yes, but, well." David cleared his throat. "We both know that very little in this world of ours is left up to complete chance, if one can manipulate things from the back end at all, don't we."

"Don't you believe in Christmas miracles?" Annie asked.

"Not as much as I believe in savvy political assistants who deliver the best holiday gifts imaginable." David grinned as tea arrived. "Ah, just on time. Well, you don't need to confirm anything, but here, have a biscuit as you talk me through the rest of my day, won't you? Looks like they're chocolate again, too—that's a welcome change."

"Merry Christmas, sir," smiled Annie, and she shook her head as she accepted a biscuit from the plate that David held out to her, then glanced down at the agenda again and continued talking him through affairs of state.


End file.
